By Arinya Talerngsri

(Bangkok Post) – More successful businesses are embracing succession planning to deepen their employee bench strength and ensure they have top talent at every level of the company.  At the same time, succession planning is intended to ensure that an organization can meet its future needs for people.

If you look more closely, talent management and succession planning have frequently been linked together. It’s no exaggeration to say that many people struggle to differentiate between the two terms.  That’s why I want to emphasize in this article that, in fact, succession planning and talent management should be integrated, not two separate sets of processes.  Most importantly, without a well-executed talent management strategy, successful succession planning cannot exist.

In practice, we can say that talent management is a good foundation for companies that wish to have effective succession planning.  This is because talent management generally incorporates the practices of not only attraction but also identification and development of people with potential.

In my previous articles, I have talked about talent management several times as I see it as one of the most vital topics to be applied in every organization that aspires to be relevant in the market, particularly since human capital is the most critical asset any organization can ever have.  The concept of succession planning, however, might be a little more difficult to understand.  Even though many people know and see the value of building a succession planning strategy, they don’t know where to start.

Just like talent management, succession planning needs to start with assessing the key positions, in other words the roles in the company that are critical for the business.  Then, you need to identify the key talents to fill such positions before assessing them in more detail to see whether they have what you are looking for.  Once you’ve assessed their talents, you can begin to develop and generate long-term development plans to groom and deepen their bench strength in all the critical areas of the business. Eventually, you need to create a consistent and ongoing review process to make sure your succession planning is effective and solid.

The process I’ve just outlined contains only the high-level key elements of succession planning but it is certainly a good start. Also, I’m sure that now you can see a lot of overlap between talent management and succession planning; as I said, the two practices should be integrated, not separated. Moreover, each firm needs to fit its approach to talent and succession management to its own particular business needs, culture and workforce outlook for the best outcome.

 

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